Stella Aeterna is the grand palace of Chronasis and the seat of the Thalena's government.
Stella Aeterna also houses the Room of Records.
Overview
Stella Aeterna is the grand palace of Chronasis and the seat of the Thalena's government. Thalena rebuilds the older Palace of Time into Stella Aeterna after becoming archon of Space and Time, rules the renewed Chronasis from it, and places the Nexus Research Center beneath it around the ancient gate chamber.
The palace remains Chronasis's main administrative and residential palace under Cassian. Archons, chronarcs, officials, legati, attendants, researchers, honored guests, and members of Thalena's household all move through Stella Aeterna, making it both a government complex and a lived-in palace.
Design and Layout
Stella Aeterna stands slightly elevated above Chronasis, reached by smooth roads, grand stairs, and towering entrance doors. Its exterior has white columns, glass, domes, high arches, and dense essence woven into the stone and facade, matching the celestial white-and-silver style Thalena gives the renewed city.
Inside, Stella Aeterna includes wide halls, lounges, offices, sleeping quarters, baths, dining spaces, libraries, records rooms, storage rooms, and palace chambers lined with constellations, silver veins, polished floors, and star-patterned light. The western flank holds Thalena's former office and later Cassian's office. The second floor includes sleeping quarters for chronarcs, archons, officials, and guests.
Stella Aeterna also houses the Room of Records.
The palace has direct access to the Nexus Research Center below. Nearby features include the palace courtyard, windweaver docks, roads into Chronasis, the Chronasis Colosseum in the distance, and hills behind the palace where early train testing takes place.
Government and Daily Life
Stella Aeterna houses Chronasis's daily governance. Thalena uses it as her seat during her rule of Chronasis, and Cassian later governs from the same palace. Nethira, Astryx, Lunorax, Aelius, Cyrena, Jareth, and Chronasis officials deliver briefings, attend meetings, run research, and carry out military or administrative orders there. The palace hosts archon meetings, government offices, military briefings, research briefings, diplomatic receptions, feasts, and planning after timerifts, disappearances, and wartime intelligence.
The palace is also a household. Zephyra and Aelius grow up there as Thalena's adopted children, and Thalia grows up around the palace under close protection. Cassian, Arinella, Ilyra, Deylin, Jin, and other allies live, stay, or gather there at different points. Its baths use aether artifacts to move and warm water, and its lounges and dining spaces host regular meetings for Thalena's inner circle.
History
After Thalena becomes archon of Space and Time in 4836 AX, she rebuilds the Palace of Time into Stella Aeterna, models the renewed Chronasis partly after ancient Jazarel, appoints chronarcs, expands waterways and civic design, and builds the Nexus Research Center beneath the palace. A written message bearing Lunorax's name lies on Stella Aeterna's floor, and Lunorax later arrives in the research center below.
Under Cassian, Cassian governs from Stella Aeterna. The research center below prepares gates and tests technology, while palace officials arrange diplomacy, healer assignments, agricultural planning, train development, and wartime orders.
Timerifts tear through Stella Aeterna during a feast, send Aelius, Zayren, Xarion, Thea, Tianlei, Dorian, Rowenna, and others into temporal displacement, and damage the palace and courtyard. Repairs begin afterward, and Stella Aeterna remains Chronasis's command seat through the later wartime intelligence, disappearances, and gate investigations.
Palace of Time
The Palace of Time was Chronasis's earlier palace and the seat of the archon of time before Stella Aeterna. By 4332 AX, Kairessa ruled from it, and Pyrrhus worked in Chronasis's records and libraries under her. The palace had official halls, a formal chamber with white columns, a long table, thirteen chairs, guarded side positions, and a deep vault that held the surviving record of history being destroyed around Malverand.
The Palace of Time stopped existing as a separate site after Thalena became archon of Space and Time in 4836 AX. She rebuilt it into Stella Aeterna and expanded the chamber beneath the palace into the Nexus Research Center around the ancient gate.